Horror movies tap into the fears which exist in people -- fears about life, death, the afterlife, uncertainty -- and manifest those fears into something grotesque and alien while remaining wholly recognizable. One of the undisputed masters of this genre is George A. Romero. He came onto the scene with his low budget, genre-defining "Night of the Living Dead," which is widely interpreted as being a biting commentary (no pun intended) on the racial conflicts of the late 1960s, only with zombies. A couple of movies and two "Dead" sequels later, he returned in 2005 with "George A. Romero's Land of the Dead," our Golden Tomato Award winner for the horror genre, with an adjusted score of 69.07 and a 74% on the Tomatometer. "Land of the Dead" takes place in an apocalyptic future where the remaining humans are walled up in a fortified city with zombies outside; the underlying theme becomes a commentary on class where the haves use and exploit the have-nots. Bob Strauss of the Los Angeles Daily News proclaimed, "Once again, George Romero has made a zombie movie for the times we live in," while New York Times critic Manohla Dargis called it "an excellent freakout of a movie."

Though "Land of the Dead" is fresh, horror movies generally don't do well with the critics; the rest of the entries in this genre are all rotten. Rob Zombie's directorial debut, 2003's "House of 1000 Corpses," scored a dismal 14% on the Tomatometer; his follow-up, "The Devil's Rejects," is a vast improvement, with an adjusted score of 53.31 and a Tomatometer of 53%. The runner-up in the horror category, "The Devil's Rejects" is technically superior to its predecessor, but critics remain divided on its merits. As Jeff Shannon of the Seattle Times put it, "Despite some giddy humor and a soundtrack of '70s Top-40 hits, this is 'entertainment' for sociopaths, occasionally effective but impossible to recommend with a clear conscience."

"Wolf Creek" comes in third with an adjusted score of 52.05 and a Tomatometer of 51%. As with "The Devil's Rejects," critics admit it shows movie-making skill, but at the same time question why such a sadistic film needs to be made in the first place. Mark Pfeiffer of Reel Times: Reflections on Cinema called it "a well-made film, but its technical merits are overwhelmed by the disgust registered as it wallows in some of the nastiest human behavior imaginable."

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